 |
|||||||||
| Back to REEL |
Festival Schedule |
Filmmaker Biographies |
Filmmakers/ Distributors |
Festival Archive |
Back to Canadian Art |
||||
| All films are screened at the Stanford Perrott Lecture Hall Alberta College of Art + Design, 1407 14th Avenue NW FREE ADMISSION. For more information, call 403-284-7633 or see www.acad.ab.ca/raff.html |
|||||
|
|||||
| Thursday, March 24 7:00 pm | |||||
|
Painter Wanda Koop makes us question how and what we see: she shows us what we missed the first time around, and what remains hidden. Two, 25-year career retrospectives at the Winnipeg and National Art Galleries are approaching, and this visionary Canadian artist is preparing massive new works depicting archetypal cities and familiar yet disquieting landscapes. In Katherine Knight’s brilliant new film, we enter Koop’s world, and are compelled to relate her strange yet familiar images—in which the real and the abstract coexist—to our own frames of reference. Katherine Knight is a filmmaker, artist and professor of visual art at York University. In 2006, Knight and David Craig founded Site Media Inc., a Toronto film company that produces documentary films about creative individuals in extraordinary places. Knight is the producer of Annie Pootogook and Kinngait: Riding Light Into the World. Her 2009 film about Canadian performance artist Colette Urban, Pretend Not to See Me, received Special Mention at the Ecofilm Festival in Rhodos, Greece.
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
Thursday, March 24 9:00 pm | ||||
Though Jean-Michel Basquiat started out as a graffiti artist, he quickly rose to fame in 1980s New York, creating distinctive paintings and befriending icons like Andy Warhol and Deborah Harry. However, trouble soon took hold, and the artist died suddenly at 27. In this definitive documentary, director Tamra Davis pays tribute to her friend while also acknowledging his difficulties. Interviews with Larry Gagosian, Annina Nosei, Julian Schnabel and others uncover the mystique of Basquiat as both artist and man. Tamra Davis was born in California and studied filmmaking at the Los Angeles City College Cinema. She began her career directing music videos for artists including Hanson, Luscious Jackson and Sonic Youth, and directed her first feature, Gun Crazy, in 1992. Other features include Billy Madison, Half Baked and Crossroads. Davis has also directed documentaries like Mi Vida Loca and the short films To the Curb and Sophie Goes to the Beach. She helmed a concert feature for the Indigo Girls and travelled to Africa, where she directed a film for the United Nations about Bill Clinton’s land-mines initiative.
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|||||
| Friday, March 25 5:00 pm | |||||
Over the last two decades, the contemporary art scene in China has
|
|||||
|
|||||
 |
|||||
| Friday, March 25 6:30 pm | |||||
|
How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? looks at the rise of one of the world’s premier architects, Norman Foster, and his unending quest to improve quality of life through design. Portrayed are Fosters origins and how his dreams and influences inspired emblematic projects such as Beijing Airport—one of the largest buildings in the world—the Reichstag reconstruction, the Hearst Tower in New York and a bridge in Millau, France, considered the tallest in the world. In the very near future, the majority of human beings will abandon the countryside and live entirely in cities. Foster offers some striking solutions to the problems that this historic event will create. Noberto López Amado has been working for the past 20 years as a filmmaker on diverse projects in cinema, television and advertising. His first full-length feature film, Nos Miran, was a commercial success and was well received by critics worldwide. He is currently considered one of the leading directors of episodic television in Spain. Lopez’s second feature film, Zig Zag, is in pre-production.
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
Friday, March 25 8:15 pm | ||||
|
For more than 30 years, conceptual artist Jenny Holzer has used language to call into question how contemporary selfhood is influenced by media and politics. Her texts have appeared on posters, LED signs, billboards, stone benches and, most recently, as projections on various surfaces in major cities across the world. About Jenny Holzer traces her tremendous career, from putting up posters in New York in the late 1970s to being awarded the Lion d’Or at Venice in 1990 and becoming one of the most influential female artists today. Director Claudia Müller followed Holzer over a 10-year period, at work and in numerous exhibitions, gaining a unique perspective on the artist and her art. Claudia Müller has a background in journalism, German literature, and fine art. Since 1991, she has worked as a television journalist and director, making numerous film portraits, videoclips, interviews and documentaries.
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
 S. Malik ARK 2010. Fibreglass and hand-cut mirror. Photo: John Dean. |
Everyone Welcome March 23 – April 16, 2011: Part of a continuing series of exhibitions that showcase the diversity of work produced by the ACAD community, this exhibition gives students a glimpse of the issues their instructors are currently exploring in their own practices. This year’s exhibition will also include curated selections of ACAD alumni work to mark the 25th anniversary of ACAD’s secession and to celebrate its autonomy as an institution. May 18 – 28, 2011: This annual exhibition is a window into the innovative and creative processes of ACAD students and includes work from some of Canada’s most exciting emerging artists and designers. Join us as we celebrate the achievements of over 200 graduates showcased throughout the college. Please see ACAD is a leading centre for education and research, and a catalyst for creative inquiry and cultural development. We engage the world and create possibilities.
|
||||
|
|||||
|
Saturday, March 26 1:00 pm | ||||
|
Korean-born artist Nam June Paik is known as the inventor of media art, and is one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. At a time when television was still a novelty, Paik foresaw the future popularity of this new and exciting medium. He transformed objects through destruction, alteration and the integration of eastern and western cultures, creating a curiously ironic visual language. This film presents a review of his works and shows excerpts from old footage, along with interviews with the artist’s collaborators, contemporaries and family members. Maria Anna Tappeiner is a freelance art historian and documentary filmmaker living in Frankfurt, Germany. She has made documentaries on prominent artists and filmmakers such as William Kentridge, Richard Serra and several others.
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
Saturday, March 26 2:30 pm | ||||
|
“I do not draw simply the surface of the landscape. I feel I am capturing the breath and soul of the earth,” explains Shuvinai Ashoona. Ghost Noise celebrates the absolute intelligence, mischief and poetry of this gifted Inuit artist. Director Marcia Connolly leads the viewer into the magical world of Ashoona’s fantastical artworks, where imagination collides with the realities of Arctic life. We also see Ashoona in the Kinngait Studios, Cape Dorset, where she has been working for over 15 years, creating her meticulously detailed drawings that deftly reflect personal experience, psychological perception, and the landscape that surrounds her. Marcia Connolly produces emotive films that create a sense of intimacy between her documentary subjects and her audience. Connolly’s work has been shown internationally and nationally, including at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Palme in Paris, the Toronto International Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Gallery of Canada. She has contributed over 50 pieces for award-winning programs at the CBC.
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
Saturday, March 26 3:30 pm | ||||
|
A legend and an enigma, the life and work of Calgary artist John Will is difficult to quantify. However, Will, an ambitious film by young director Lucas Hrubizna, captures the influence the painter, teacher and mentor has had within Calgary’s art community over his long career. With intelligence, sensitivity and a healthy respect for the absurd, Hrubizna follows Will as he continues not only to make work, but also to live a life determinedly inextricable from art. Lucas Hrubizna is a filmmaker, musician and photographer from Calgary. He is currently taking a year to travel after graduating from Westmount Charter School.
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
Saturday, March 26 4:30 pm | ||||
|
As one of the leading figures of minimalism and conceptual art, Sol LeWitt redefined art making by emphasizing the idea behind a work rather than its execution. During the four decades of his career, LeWitt produced more than 1,200 remarkably complex wall drawings using a deliberately limited repertoire of lines and geometric shapes. Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawings focuses on a posthumous, grand-scale retrospective of 105 of these works, which opened in 2008 for a 25-year run at one of MASS MoCA’s old mill buildings in North Adams, Massachusetts. Edgar B. Howard is the Founder and President of Checkerboard Films, a non-profit
foundation that documents American arts for archival and educational purposes.
|
||||
|
|||||
| Saturday, March 26 7:00 pm | |||||
 Photo: John Walker. |
Winds of Heaven is an impressionistic, luminous exploration of the solitary life of one of Canada’s most celebrated and irrepressible painters, Emily Carr (1871-1945). Director Michael Ostroff takes viewers on a lyrical journey into the brooding mystery and beauty of Carr’s paintings, and highlights her connection to the First Nations people of the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. The film makes imaginative use of stunning archival material to explore, in an understated, unhurried and contemplative manner, the impact of contact between white settlers and indigenous peoples, and the role of art in this narrative. The Vancouver Film Festival called Winds of Heaven “possibly one of the best films ever made about our province, these forests and our history as newcomers.” Michael Ostroff has produced documentaries and educational videos since 1973. He has specialized in narrative historical documentaries exploring issues relating to history and development of Canada’s cultural voice. Ostroff’s previous work as a director includes Pegi Nicol: Something Dancing About Her, which premiered at the National Gallery and was an Official Selection (In Competition) of the prestigious Festival International du Film sur l’Art (2006), and Budge, a portrait of pioneering Canadian filmmaker Budge Crawley.
|
||||
|
|||||
| Saturday, March 26 9:00 pm | |||||
|
Townes Van Zandt has had a profound impact on generations of musicians, from Bob Dylan to Norah Jones, yet, during his lifetime, avoided the commercial success enjoyed by many of his own fans. Billy Joe Shaver calmly stated, “As far as I was concerned, he was the best songwriter who ever lived, and that’s it.” Lucinda Williams called him “too cool to be forgotten.” Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Emmylou Harris all had number-one hits with his songs. Be Here to Love Me provides an intimate portrait of the legendary artist’s music and life, with appearances by Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett. Margaret Brown makes her directorial debut with Be Here to Love Me. She produced Six Miles of Eight Feet, which won a Student Academy Award. She was the cinematographer for Ice Fishing, which received a Special Jury Prize from Sundance in 2000, and for which she was given the Nestor Almendros Award for Cinematography from the NYU Graduate Film Program. Brown has also produced a feature-length Western about singing cowboys, Mi Amigo (2002).
|
||||
|
|||||
| Sunday, March 27 1:00 pm | |||||
|
Picture Start documents how a small group of artists put Vancouver at the leading edge of contemporary art. Focusing on Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace and Rodney Graham, three celebrated artists of the so-called Vancouver School, the film traces the history of the development of Vancouver photo-conceptualism, capturing the relationships between the artists and their peers. Featuring interviews with the artists, curators and collectors, the film seeks to answer key questions as to how and why these artists came together as contemporaries in what might be thought of as an unlikely setting. Harry Killas is a Vancouver-based director, writer and producer. Recent documentary work includes Aristotle’s Lagoon, a history of Aristotle’s biological thought, for the BBC. Of note for this festival, Killas directed and produced Glowing in the Dark, a history of neon art and design. Dramatic work includes What Else Have You Got? and Babette’s Feet, which played at over 25 international festivals including Toronto and Clermont-Ferrand. Killas currently teaches documentary and dramatic filmmaking, and media studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver.
|
||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
Sunday, March 27 2:30 pm Documentary filmmaker Michael Hegglin enters the eccentric world of internationally renowned Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist in The Colour of Your Socks: A Year With Pipilotti Rist. The film follows Rist in her Zurich studio and around the world, from the Biennale in Venice to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as she prepares for various exhibitions. This behind-the-scenes documentary sheds light on Rist’s creative process, the development of her projects and her collaboration with her team. Michael Hegglin was born in Zug, Switzerland. He studied philosophy, history and German before beginning a career in television. He has made numerous documentary films and film portraits.
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
Sunday, March 27 3:45 pm William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible Named in 2009 as one of Time magazine’s most influential people in the world, South African William Kentridge is among the most dynamic and exciting contemporary artists working today. His acclaimed charcoal drawings, animations, video installations, shadow plays, mechanical puppets, tapestries, sculptures, live performances and operas are rich with historical references, political undertones, social commentary and metaphors for the artistic process. William Kentridge: Anything is Possible follows Kentridge during preparations and rehearsals for the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Shostakovich’s The Nose, for which he was both director and set designer. The film gives viewers an intimate look into the mind of an experimental artist whose personal history as a white South African of Jewish heritage has informed his work’s recurring themes, including violent oppression, class struggle and political hierarchies. Susan Sollins is the Executive Director and founder of Art21 and has served as Executive Producer, Director and Curator of the Peabody Award–winning PBS television series Art in the Twenty-First Century. In addition to her past curatorial and consulting work for many art institutions, Susan Sollins is the co-founder and Executive Director Emerita of the nonprofit organization Independent Curators International.
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
  Iran do Espírito Santo En Passant 2 2008. Household paint on wall, dimensions variable. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. Photo: Jason Wyche. |
Everyone Welcome June 30 – September 24, 2011: Iran do Espírito Santo produces some of the most significant site-specific installations in the world, exploring the space between the concrete and the abstract. Santo’s approach to large-scale drawings is idiosyncratic, a sleek blend of Minimalism, Pop and Surrealism. His objects are bound by a refined simulacra of common, styleconscious geometric objects whose forms have been altered or abstracted to varying degrees, skewing expectations of their representation and experience. Santo has appeared in numerous international solo and group exhibitions including PlugIn ICA, Winnipeg, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art São Paulo, the 2000 Istanbul Biennial, the 2003 Venice Biennale, The Power Plant, Toronto, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He was featured in a mid-career survey at Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MAXXII) in February 2006 and created an installation at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal for the Biennale de Montréal in 2007. Please see ACAD is a leading centre for education and research, and a catalyst for creative inquiry and cultural development. We engage the world and create possibilities.
|
||||
|
|||||
| Download Festival Catalogue PDF  |
All films are screened at the Stanford Perrott Lecture Hall Schedule subject to change.
|
||||
